Dear You () is a 2026 Chinese family drama film directed and co-written by Lan Hongchun. It stars a largely non-professional cast featuring Li Sitong, Wang Yantong, Wu Shaoqing, Zheng Runqi and Wang Xiaohui, alongside Thai actress Usha Seamkhum.
The film is primarily in Teochew, spoken in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong. It also employs qiaopi, specifically the Teochew letters, as a narrative thread to tell the story of a young man who travels to Thailand to track down his long-lost grandfather, only to uncover a decades-old secret involving a stranger.
Dear You premiered in Shantou on April 17, 2026. It was released by Damai Entertainment in select regions of China on April 30, followed by a nationwide theatrical release on May 3. Made on a modest budget of ¥14 million, the film became a massive sleeper hit, grossing over ¥1.9 billion at the domestic box office. The film also made an impact in Southeast Asia. In Singapore, its Mandarin release sparked public and parliamentary debates regarding the Speak Mandarin Campaign. Meanwhile, the film influenced political campaigns during state elections in Malaysia.
Plot In modern-day China, Iap Sogriu lives quietly in Shantou, believing that her husband, Den Bhagseng, who had fled to the Nanyang region to avoid forceful conscription during the Civil War decades earlier, had deserted his family after sending a final qiaopi (khiâu-phoi, remittance letters) before ceasing all contact completely. Rumors began to rise within the family that Bhagseng had remarried, became a billionaire, and was running a charity for local schools in Thailand. Burdened by massive debt, her grandson, Hiou-ui, travels to Thailand to find his supposedly wealthy grandfather. Instead, he discovers that Bhagseng had died in 1960, he had never remarried, and the qiaopi sent since his death were from a Thai-Chinese woman named Zia Lamgi. Hiou-ui tracks down Zia Zeghua, Lamgi's son, who uncovers the true story hidden in the decades-old letters.
In the 1950s, after being evicted from British Malaya, Bhagseng worked as a rickshaw driver and secretly stayed at a hostel run by the Zia family in Bangkok's Chinatown, eventually getting busted by the landlord's daughter, Lamgi. Initially hostile towards each other, the two eventually became friends. Wanting to help the local Chinese children, Bhagseng and local teacher Di Gong secretly taught local children Chinese in the hostel, despite government restrictions. Lamgi eventually joined the school and began learning to read and write Chinese. When some businessmen offered to buy the land of the hostel but were rejected, they burned down the hostel. Bhagseng heroically saved Lamgi and her father Laisung, but lost his savings in the fire and was imprisoned for beating up the arsonists. During his imprisonment, Lamgi sent qiaopi to Sogriu and his family back in China in his stead. After being released, Bhagseng bought a riverboat and embarked on a new career as a ferryman to repay his debts, while Lamgi took up odd jobs, sold food, and continued teaching the local children.
Tragedy struck in 1960 when Bhagseng was killed while thwarting a robbery on a neighboring boat. Heartbroken, Lamgi could not bear to tell Sogriu the truth. She continued to send money, letters, and gifts to Sogriu in Bhagseng's name, preserving his family's hope. During this time, Lamgi adopted an orphaned baby, Zeghua, and both Lamgi and Sogriu indirectly shared a connection as they both went through motherhood. In 1978, Lamgi planned to meet Sogriu alongside Laisung in person to explain what happened. After Laisung peacefully passed away, however, Lamgi abandoned her plans and instead wrote to Sogriu, explaining the truth along with a group photograph of herself, Bhagseng, and the students they taught in her hostel. Unexpectedly, a typhoon destroyed the explanatory letter, leaving only the photograph to be delivered. Sogriu misinterpreted it as proof that Bhagseng had started a new family and moved on, severing all contact and moving out of her home village so she could no longer be reached. Lamgi kept writing and trying to send her letters until the remittance offices all closed down.
Back in the present day, Sogriu finally learns of the truth of the photograph and Lamgi's decades-long sacrifice through a phone call from Hiou-ui and Zeghua. She travels to Thailand and is greeted by Zeghua, Di Gong, and Lamgi and Bhagseng's old students, who are now running charities for schools in his honor. Sogriu finally meets Lamgi, now suffering from dementia, and the two bond over their shared past with Bhagseng. The Den and Zia families forge a new bond, and Bhagseng's spirit tablet is finally brought back to his hometown in China.
Cast
Production Development
The film was the third Teochew-language project directed by Lan Hongchun, following and . Lan chose to feature different accents of Teochew, spoken in Shantou and Chaoyang. According to Lan, since his first two films centered on the father and mother respectively, it was a natural progression to focus on the grandmother for this third installment. The inspiration for the film stemmed from the real-life experiences of overseas Chinese that Lan encountered while filming the documentary Teochew (), which explored Teochew cuisine around the world. Most of the details and plot points in the movie were rooted in true stories.
Lan Hongchun and his collaborator Yang Leng wrote the first version of the screenplay for Dear You. To improve readability, they enlisted Zhu Liyun to adapt it into a novel. When they sought investment, Zheng Xuanxuan immediately took a liking to the story. Lan Hongchun, Zheng Xuanxuan, Yang Leng and Zhu Liyun then formed a screenwriting team to refine the script further. To facilitate a quicker and more accurate understanding of the film's background, Zheng Xuanxuan and her team meticulously crafted a comprehensive guidebook to Siam, spanning tens of thousands of words. This guidebook delved into every facet of 20th-century Thailand, encompassing aspects such as daily life, culture and customs.
Casting
The cast of this film comprises mostly non-professional actors. According to Lan, the production team implemented the MBTI personality assessment as a reference during casting and conducted interviews with over 1,000 individuals. Li Sitong, a financial engineering graduate from Guangdong University of Finance and Economics who portrays Zia Lamgi, was discovered on a short-video platform. Following this breakthrough role, she became a breakout star in China and intends to further pursue her career in acting. Wang Yantong, who plays Den Bhagseng, graduated from with a degree in the Art of Announcing and Anchoring. Wang Xiaohui, who stars as the young Sok-jiu, is an illustrator and designer at a toy company; she has stated that she has no plans to enter the entertainment industry for the time being.
The film's main supporting cast includes several local influencers from Chaoshan, who portray characters such as Aunt Ru, Xiaowei, Xie Laishun, and the elderly Ye Shurou. Thai actress Usha Seamkhum, recognized for her role in How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024), was cast as the elderly Zia Lamgi. Despite having no formal acting training and speaking neither Mandarin nor Teochew, she relied on body language to convey her character's emotions.
Filming
The film was officially filed and registered by Shenzhen Lichun Pictures in December 2023 and commenced principal photography in October 2024, with extensive on-site filming taking place across various locations including Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang. To authentically capture the ambiance of old Siam, the production team recreated the setting of Bangkok's Chinatown in Jieyang, drawing inspiration from Zheng Xuanxuan's guidebook. Due to budget constraints, the team was unable to construct a full-scale set and had to rely on existing historic buildings to recreate the scene as faithfully as possible.
Some parts of the film were also shot on location in Bangkok, and members of the Tio Chew Association of Thailand were invited to make cameo appearances in the scene set at the association.
Music The film's original score and soundtrack were released on April 29, 2026, through Lichun Pictures. Wu Zehua composed the score for the film. The soundtrack was produced by local band Toy Captain frontman Li Yihan and screenwriter Yang Leng. Li wrote several folk songs with the Nanyang theme; Beijing-born singer performed the film's theme song, "Brewing Tea Under the Moon" ().
Release Dear You premiered in Shantou on April 17, 2026. It held preview screenings in the Chaoshan region starting April 18, 2026, and expanded to the entire province of Guangdong on April 24. The film received official theatrical release by Damai Entertainment in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and Hainan on April 30, before opening nationwide on May 3. It was announced that the film would be released in IMAX theaters on May 23.
Dear You also had a market screening at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, showcasing its distributors' intent to venture into the international market. The film's international release date was initially announced as June 18, in various markets including Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. It is set to receive releases in Australia and New Zealand on June 25, in the United Kingdom and Ireland on June 26, in Thailand on August 6, in Indonesia on August 7, and in France on September 2. It is also scheduled for release in other regions.
The film was originally scheduled for release in North America by CMC Pictures on June 26, but it was later confirmed that its North American premiere would take place on July 26 as the closing film of the 25th New York Asian Film Festival, and it would receive a theatrical release on September 4, co-distributed by Well Go USA.
Singapore release controversy On June 18, Dear You was released commercially in Mandarin in Singapore, in line with the Speak Mandarin Campaign since its launch in 1979; films featuring non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese were only allowed on a case-by-case basis. The campaign targeted "Chinese dialects", a term rejected by some linguists due to a lack of mutual intelligibility, according to Tan Dawn Wei of The Straits Times; instead, they are just "variants" of a language. It restricted "dialects" such as Hokkien and Cantonese in media like film, television, and radio, but not for the Internet and arts performances. This was to aid Chinese Singaporeans' use of Mandarin, despite no linguistic evidence that knowledge of non-Mandarin varieties will affect Mandarin learning adversely more than knowledge of any language in particular. The Mandarin release of the film reignited debate about Singapore's language policies and the "cultural trade-offs" that were made, arguing about whether Mandarin and non-Mandarin varieties can co-exist.